RACE REPORTS:

Stromlo Criterium – 11th November

Track Racing – 31st October

Dalton Graded Scratch– 17th November

46 riders.

After a number of endeavours to get this race to finish in a reasonable time, I tried a new approach today and with the able assistance of Mike Hayes in the lead car and Dale Teddy in the trail car I think we managed to get it very close. The altered start times and order for E,F & G meant that they wouldn't be out on the course when everyone else was finished and the lower grades did get back in time to get at the cake.

My thanks to all those that answered the call for marshals: Des Brown, Andrew Douglas, Mike Hayes, Jeremy Gillman-Wells, Julianne Quaine, Dale Teddy and Owain Tilley, all volunteered early making this a really easy race to conduct. Special thanks to those who offered - Matt Kinch, Mark Gillet and Trent Wiseman - your good deeds seem to have been rewarded in some way with each of you having a podium finish!

2 flat tyres out of 46 bikes doesn't look like good odds but Bill Frost was told that his rear tyre was well worn - Sue knows best Bill! Ian Donnely's flat was just bad luck.

First home was E Grade with Cameron Ermert leading Ian Aubrey and Liz Lowe up the hill and it would seem a little time out of the country has done Phil Coulton in F Grade no harm at all. Ian Morton found the Dalton terrain more to his liking and was a clear second in front of Graham Hendrie.

Matt Kinch powered home to beat Tom Hartley, with Brendan Byatt leading a group of 4 A Graders for a close third. B Grade stormed home in a bunch with Christophe Barberet bursting across the line for first, closely followed by Nick Boyan and Mark Gillet. Alain Arbaut and Andrew Tully fought it out up the incline for C Grade honours with Alain pipping Andrew at the post. David Stewart-Thomson was just off the pace in third place. The G Graders, Bruce Jones in first and Angelika Mauch second, come home amongst all this activity and showed no signs of wear- an indicator that Dalton is to their liking? Alister Nitz (1st), Trent Wiseman (2nd) and Richard Gorrell (3rd) led D Grade home to complete a good day's racing.

Special thanks to Henry Beaverstock at registrations and the start and finish lines with assistance from Graham Hendrie on the computer.

Thanks to James Meredith for Race Refereeing.

Report from E Grade

Sometimes it all comes together, almost.

A small field of 7 lined up for the start of the E grade race. I was in a good mood, the course is one of my favourites, my bike was clean, the weather was clement with a reasonable breeze. I had knocked up a work stand out of a folding saw horse and had give my bike a good clean over the day before. On my warm up the bike was purring along, the spokes were shiny, the tyres were at the right pressure, the bike was quiet and smooth and just felt good. 8)

The course at Dalton has 3 legs out and back from the town.

The first leg (east) starts with a 6km climb, followed by a 4km descent to the turn and back, (The higher grades do this leg twice) The second leg (west) starts with a sharp little ridge to get over, another descent and undulates a bit to the turn at 4km and then back, The third leg (north) is fairly flat for 4km out and back before turning for the finish which is to the east of the town.

The hills on the east leg whilst significant enough are not very steep, I presume the higher grades would have climbed them on the big ring. That being said I have been dropped within the first 3km on this course before. Today however I was riding well enough to stay with the bunch up to the top of the hill. In the past I have used the downhill to either break away or chase back on but today I decided to cool my jets and arrive at the foot of the climb feeling fresh(ish). At the turn I was a little surprised to see that we had dropped Jeff, although he is a good time trialist so was not necessarily out of it at that stage. On the climb back up the hill Terrence broke away, I encouraged the others to let him ride by himself for a while because there was no way he'd hold off the bunch on the descent to follow, and sure enough we caught him only half way down. Somewhere in the chase we managed to drop Alex, which was unusual,as he is a smart racer and I'd thought that he'd be in with a chance today. This left Ian, Terrence, myself Belinda and Liz, and we came back through Dalton together.

The west leg has a nasty little climb that had me a bit concerned, so I took up station on the front out near the middle of the lane, partly to discourage attacks and mostly to make sure that the others would take as long as possible to come past me. It seemed to work, and I stayed with the bunch out to the second turn and back again to the top of the ridge. This bit was my favourite bit of the course, a fast descent that goes straight into a left turn to start the north leg. I'd scouted this corner in the warm up so I knew that it had been recently swept so I could be confident of attacking it. Sure enough I pulled out a gap of about 40m on this turn and caused a slightly panicked scramble behind to chase me down. This was just what I was hoping for to take a bit of the sting out of the others.

By this stage I knew, that I was likely to be the fastest finisher amongst the group, so I figured that it would be up to the others to make the running and to try and win by breakaway. As an overweight, undertrained racer I don't get to fight out many sprint finishes and I wasn't going to throw this one away. The pace came out of the race as everyone else also started thinking about the finish. Terrence had a dig, but Ian shut him down, Ian was looking the strongest to me. Belinda went to the front and drove the pace for a while, but the pace settled again when no-one was prepared to go past her. Finally we came to the town for the last time and turned for the finish. The sprint is a little tricky to judge, as it is uphill and today it was into the wind as well. Terrence jumped first at about 300m to go, Ian and I responded immediately and as we caught Terrence I launched my bid for the line. It was hardly withering acceleration but it was enough to open a gap, I pushed on for the line and knew that I had gone too early and that I was over geared so was just willing myself to tough it out for a few seconds more. I didn't know where Ian was but I suspected that he'd be closing, however as my friend Ray used to say 'It's better to be at the front dying, than to be at the back flying'. I didn't look back, and held on for the win. At the finish my lungs had exploded, it took a while to get my breathing back under control. I still have no idea of how much of a margin I had, but all I know was that it was at least a bike length.

Result: Me, followed by Ian, Liz got up for third over the tiring Terrence and Belinda.

The only downside is that my camera battery failed to charge (Osram's law, need to turn it on to make it work) so no footage, you'll just have to take my word for it.